Game Night

Mark Perez has written one of the tightest comedy scripts to make it to be the big screen in ages. Game Night, directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, wastes not a single second of dialogue, gives killer lines to every member of its all-star ensemble, delivers genuinely tense action sequences, and even goes for broke with style.

It maintains its cheekiness while poking fun at the overused concept of redemption. Most importantly, it stays funny up to the beginning of the end credits, and maybe a little beyond.

Bateman's dazzling deadpan can raise tired zingers to raucous life with only a throwaway eyebrow lift. And McAdams takes to comedy with a natural actor's grace and precision. Talk about fun company. They're it.

It’s a good time, but it maybe could have been a great one. Which I suppose is true of so many nights meant to deliver us from the doldrums of settled life. I don’t think that meta-ness is a deliberate feature of Game Night. But with all the sharpness Daley and Goldstein show us here, I’m not ruling it out, either.

Game Night itself is not a long night; it’s reasonably snappy. But co-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein place a misjudged emphasis on keeping the violence and the action “real,” so at its most routine and generic, the movie forgets it’s supposed to be a comedy.

The movie relies rather too heavily on McAdams’ charm, sort of like a limp cheeseburger that’s saved by some really good bacon. But hey, sometimes a fast-food cheeseburger satisfies, more or less.

The movie’s only vaguely human presence is Sharon Horgan (the gifted writer and star of TV’s Catastrophe), who gazes upon the manufactured gags with an air of chagrin. If the movie had risen even an inch to her level, Game Night might've had some game.

Suspenso, comedia, acción y hasta drama, todo es una película maravillosa y con una fotografía majestuosa

Bland humour and sideways plot makes for a fun mystery-packed adventure, but not a realistic story which will make you laugh, not at the jokes, but the movie itself in most scenarios.

Game night sports a ridiculous comedy screenplay that borders on parody. The 'murder game' twists once too many times to be taken seriously but the casting is superb. As much as I'd love to see a more dramatic realistic take on this concept, it's clear there was alot of fun had in the making of this movie and overall it's just very entertaining!

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Attention, « Game Night » est une comédie américaine… tous aux abris donc ! mais on a beau serrer les cale-pieds et s’y préparer psychologiquement, mettre les derniers neurones (restants) en friche, se remplir la tête d’eau (tiède) il n’est pas sûr qu’on tienne le coup ! D’autant qu’il s’agit d’une comédie qui se la joue maligne et prétendument ironique (?) à tenter de « caricaturer » les trous du cul agglutinés en soirée (l’after du dîner de cons en somme) qui se font des jeux de société, puis éventuellement un « jeu de rôle », un « Cluedo » grandeur nature… dont on ne sait plus si c’est du lard ou du cochon… Et pourtant, ça fonctionne ici et là, plus ou moins… bien. Même si de temps en temps, on se croirait quand même dans un Scary Movie ! (non, c’est pas bon signe…). Les comédiens et comédiennes sont uniformément mauvais, très ancrés dans leur connerie de comédie amerloque limitée mais également bien… niaiseuse ! On peut sourire ici et là en tout cas, voire un peu plus mais franchement, ça reste une espèce de dîner de cons, juste après le dîner; puis pendant toute la soirée… et la nuit aussi ! oui, ça commence à faire beaucoup de cons, tous en même temps ! alors forcément, on fatigue… assez vite.